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United States Patent | 5,619,371 |
Pontius | April 8, 1997 |
A confocal optical microscopy system for storing and retrieving optical information recorded in multiple layers in an optical disk. The invention includes a system utilizing the principle of confocal optical microscopy for accurately focusing a light beam onto a plane of a layer within a multi-layer disk. Optical information is thereby retrieved from the layer within the multi-layer disk. The invention also includes a method for recording optical data onto the multi-layer disk which comprises stacked multiple layers of transparent material having a distribution of discrete areas of metal film deposited between the layers. The distribution of metal film represents the recorded optical information.
Inventors: | Pontius; Duane H. (Gardendale, AL) |
Assignee: | Southern Research Institute (Birmingham, AL) |
Appl. No.: | 397364 |
Filed: | March 2, 1995 |
Current U.S. Class: | 359/368; 369/94 |
Intern'l Class: | G02B 021/00 |
Field of Search: | 359/368 369/59,94,112,272 |
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"More Bits from Pits", John Horgan et al., Scientific American, Aug. 1994, pp. 87-88. "Confocal Microscopy", Jeff W. Lichtman, Scientific American, Aug. 1994, pp. 40-45. "IBM Pushing Multilevel Optical Disk" IBM Almaden, San Jose, Calif., R & D Magazine, Aug. 1994, p. 9. |